The Pueblo County High School swimming coach predicted early in the week that the South-Central League meet championship would be decided by the relay events.

“Whoever wins the relays will win the meet,” Radiff repeated before Saturday’s event at the Centennial pool.

He was right.

With Pueblo West leading by a point and the finale remaining, Pueblo County won the 400 freestyle relay to take the crown from its School District 70 rival.

The Hornets had 277 points and were followed by Pueblo West (270). La Junta was third (254), its hopes of a team championship wiped out by a disqualification in the opening 200 medley relay for a false start.

Pueblo County also won the S-CL regular season, going unbeaten in six dual meets.

It’s no secret that the Hornets revolve around junior Jolene Norton, who is ranked among the state’s 4A leaders in four events and won four gold medals.

She dominated her two individual races — the 50 freestyle (25.14 seconds) and the 100 breaststroke (1:08.74) — and anchored the 400 relay and competed on the victorious 200 medley relay team.

La Junta’s Leah Roberson was a triple winner, capturing the 200 individual medley (2:19.37) and 100 freestyle (56.97), and as a member of the 200 freestyle team.

In the decisive 400 relay, Pueblo County took the lead when Taybor Johnson swam a 58-second second leg to pull the Hornets from third place. Sarah Biby maintained the slim margin over Pueblo West, which had posted the top qualifying time, before Norton blew everyone out of the water with a 54-second final leg to give the Hornets the win and the title.

Norton missed setting a pool record by 15/100th of a second in the 100 breaststroke, just before the final 400 freestyle relay, and she used that as motivation for her relay swim.

“I was still upset being that close,” Norton said of her shot at the breaststroke record.

She wasn’t surprised that her teammates kept the race close for her. “We’ve been working hard. It took a lot of work to get there,” she said.

Radiff was equally impressed with the Hornets’ first three legs of the race.

“It took all four of them to get it done,” he said. “If you go into the final event with the fastest swimmer in town anchoring it, that’s all you can do. I told them that I was tired of everyone counting on Jolene and we needed to get the job done up front. And they did.”

Pueblo West coach Diane Petkoff called the finish “awesome.”

“It’s good when you have good competition. It makes the girls swim up,” Petkoff said. “I was very proud of the way our girls swam today.”

La Junta coach Marty Roberson was disappointed in the disqualification that took the Tigers out of the team hunt at the outset.

“They said we false-started,” she said of the 200 medley relay, in which the Tigers finished second until being DQ’d. “I told the girls, ‘You know what you did (second place).’ ”